Set in 17th century Madrid, it concerns a Capucin Friar named Ambrosio (played with unusual but appropriate restraint by Vincent Cassel), who begins life as an orphan abandoned on the steps of a monastery and grows up to become the order’s most admired preacher. Exemplifying – and extolling – extreme rigour and utter virtue, Ambrosio is certain of his safety from temptation. But the pride comes before the fall, which cataclysmic event is precipitated by Satan smuggling temptation into Ambrosio’s monastery in an unforeseen guise.

Thematically, The Monk is an obvious choice for Moll, who dealt with the seemingly innocuous evil in his previous films. And with the mise-en-scene inspired by Spanish painting, the film is a visual treat. Shame, then, that Ambrosio’s curiously inert fall from grace generates neither sympathy nor suspense.